CBS’s American multi-award-winning reality competition show, Survivor, returned with a new season and longtime host on February 28, 2024. Survivor is currently CBS’s longest-running reality television show, premiering on May 31, 2000, two weeks before the American version of Big Brother premiered. Survivor has thrilled audiences with exciting and competitive new seasons for almost a quarter of a century.
Surviving along with the show has been its famous host, who has anchored it since its premiere in 2000. Although Survivor has had declining premiere viewership, controversies, and legal actions over the years, it has waxed stronger and attracted some of CBS’s reality TV ratings. With its new season currently airing, here’s more about Survivor season 46 and its host.
What Survivor Is All About
Although Survivor has had a few rule changes over the years and in select seasons, its general format and rules have remained fairly the same. Contestants, often 16 players and above, are selected to compete for a grand prize. Survivor’s winning prize is set at $1 million, except in season 40 (Survivor: Winners at War), where the winning prize was increased to $2 million. All selected contestants are taken to a remote location, often in a tropical climate. Contestants are initially divided into two or more teams called “Tribes.”
Several tasks and challenges are presented that Tribes have to compete for. Besides winning food and luxuries, contestants compete to win “immunity.” At each Tribal Council, the losing Tribe is forced to select one of its members to be eliminated. Halfway into the season, with several contestants voted off/eliminated, the Tribes are merged into one. At this point, individuals compete against one another. As with the Tribe competition, individuals must compete to gain immunity from elimination.
After the Tribes are merged, a Jury is usually formed to determine which member is voted out. Often, eliminated players constitute the Jury, with remaining contestants (without immunity) having to plead their case for why they should remain in the competition. At the Final Tribal Council, with the competition down to its final two or three contestants, the Jury decides with a vote that the “Sole Survivor” is worthy of the grand prize. Throughout each season, during the Survivor tasks, competition, and Tribal Council, the show’s host anchors all events.
Survivor Season 46 Contestants & Information
Premiering on February 28, 2024, the location of Survivor season 46 is revealed as Mamanuca Islands in Fiji. Like its previous season, Survivor season 46 will have 18 contestants and a returning host. Contestants will stay on the island for 26 days and be divided into three Tribes – Nami, Siga, and Yanu. With contestants’ ages ranging from 22 to 48, audiences can expect several alliances to be formed within Tribes and after the merge. Survivor season 46 contestants include:
- Hunter McKnight (28) – Nami Tribe
- Liz Wilcox (35) – Nami Tribe
- Randen Montalvo (41) – Nami Tribe
- Soda Thompson (27) – Nami Tribe
- Tevin Davis (24) – Nami Tribe
- Venus Vafa (24) – Nami Tribe
- Ben Katzman (31) – Siga Tribe
- Charlie Davis (26) – Siga Tribe
- Jemila “Jem” Hussain-Adams (32) – Siga Tribe
- Maria Shrime Gonzalez (48) – Siga Tribe
- Moriah Gaynor (28) – Siga Tribe
- Tim Spicer (31) – Siga Tribe
- Bhanu Gopal (41) – Yanu Tribe
- David Jelinsky (22) – Yanu Tribe
- Jessica “Jess” Chong (37) – Yanu Tribe
- Kenzie Petty (29) – Yanu Tribe
- Q Burdette (29) – Yanu Tribe
- Tiffany Nicole Ervin (33) – Yanu Tribe
Jeff Probst Is the Current Host of Survivor
Jeff Probst is the host of Survivor season 46. Probst continues as Survivor’s host, having been the show’s host since its launch in 2000. Besides being a television presenter, Jeff Probst is also a producer and young adult fiction writer. Probst also became an executive producer and producer of Survivor in 2023 and has remained executive producer through the years. Although his work in Survivor, especially as a host, is what he’s most famously known for, it wasn’t his first project on television.
Jeff Probst hosted VH1’s TV game show Rock & Roll Jeopardy!, from August 8, 1998, throughout its 4 seasons, to its finale in December 2001. Probst also hosted his show, The Jeff Probst Show, for a year, from September 10, 2012, to September 4, 2013, before it was canceled. Probst hosted all 170 episodes of the syndicated talk show. Besides his credits as a host, Jeff Probst has also appeared as himself and as a contestant in several other TV shows. Probst has been a contestant in 2 episodes of Celebrity Jeopardy! (2001, 2003), guest-starred in 5 episodes of Mad TV (2003-2007) and voiced a character in episode 7 of Family Guy season 16 (2017).
Jeff Probst played Himself in guest appearances in popular CBS shows How I Met Your Mother (2011) and Two and a Half Men (2013-2014). In 2022, Jeff Probst also appeared on Saturday Night Live season 48, Episode 4, which American rapper Jack Harlow hosted. Jeff Probst made his feature directorial debut in 2001 when he directed a screenplay he wrote in Finder’s Fee. The movie starred James Earl Jones, Ryan Reynolds, Matthew Lillard, and Robert Forster. Jeff Probst also directed and co-produced Kiss Me (2014), starring Emily Osment, Missi Pyle, and John Corbett. If you follow CBS’s Survivor TV show and its host, here’s a look back at Every ‘Survivor 45’ Star Who Left The Island & Why.